


To Sleep No More

by certain_as_the_sun



Series: How to Train Your God of Mischief [4]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Hiccup Has Nightmares, Hiccup Needs A Hug, Late Night Conversations, Loki Needs a Hug, Loki is Toothless, The Avengers (2012) Never Happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-05-31 17:31:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6479728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/certain_as_the_sun/pseuds/certain_as_the_sun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Hiccup has nightmares.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Sleep No More

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very short fic that takes place somewhere between _Revelation in the Light of Day_ and _How to Annoy the God of Mischief_. The idea for it somehow got into my head and refused to leave. I have no idea where the bit at the end with Heimdall came from, but it gave me an idea for a future story in this AU.
> 
> I'm not sure how long is supposed to have passed between the fight with the Red Death and the final scene, but it must have been some time for Gobber to have made a prosthetic and for Hiccup to have recovered enough from losing his leg to get up and walk around. Add to that the fact that the final scene seems to be the first time Hiccup was fully conscious since the battle, and it's likely he had a fever too. So it seems likely that about a month has passed.

Every night. Every night for the past five days, Hiccup had nightmares. Not the type that frightened you into waking up suddenly and then never bothered you again, oh no. His nightmares were the type that would keep you trapped in their iron grasp all night - unless someone woke you - and came back again and again and _again_. Loki would know; he'd had plenty of them. He couldn't really blame Hiccup for having nightmares. Less than a month ago he'd fallen into a fireball and lost his leg, after all. But the god would be a lot more sympathetic (well, as sympathetic as Loki ever was, which wasn't very) if the boy's nightmares would stop disturbing _his_ sleep.

At first he tried casting a sleeping spell on the boy. It failed spectacularly, and Loki discovered that the only thing more terrifying than watching Hiccup having a nightmare was watching Hiccup having a nightmare _he couldn't wake up from_. It was not an experience either of them wanted to repeat.

It had gotten to the point where Loki wouldn't even try to sleep until Hiccup had his nightly nightmare. He had several each night, but the first one was always the worst, and after waking him from it, Loki could go to sleep and be reasonably sure Hiccup would wake on his own when the next one came.

Really, if this continued much longer, he'd begin to suspect someone or something was actively causing these nightmares.

In his Æsir form, he stayed in the shadows of the room in case Hiccup's father decided to check on him (unlikely, considering the ear-splitting snores emanating from downstairs) and waited for the first nightmare of the night. He gathered the magic for a waking spell and held onto it in preparation.

He was alerted to the nightmare's beginning when Hiccup made a choking, gasping noise and curled up into a ball, murmuring something under his breath. In one smooth motion, Loki moved from the shadows to beside the bed, ready to cast the spell. Then he heard what the boy was saying.

"No, please, Dad, don't hurt him please don't hurt him-"

What in Odin's name? The boy had nightmares about _his father_?

Loki had plenty of nightmares about his father (did they really count as nightmares when they were all memories, memories of words colder than any lie he'd invented (" _those plans no longer matter_ ", " _no, Loki_ ")?). In fact, considering who his biological father was, every nightmare he'd had that revolved around the Jötnar could be thought of as a nightmare about his other father. So Loki was no stranger to nightmares about fathers, but he'd never thought _Hiccup_ would be plagued by them. It made no sense; anyone could see that for all his failings as a father, Stoick cared for his son.

There was only one way to solve this mystery. Loki cast the waking spell, and Hiccup awoke with a jolt.

"Please don't hurt- Loki?" He blinked and rubbed his eyes. "Er... Did I say anything out loud?"

For once in his life, Loki was completely honest. "Yes. Yes, you did. And you will now explain why you said what you did."

Hiccup looked like he wanted to run a hundred miles in the opposite direction. "What... what did I say?"

"You said, and I quote, "please, Dad, don't hurt him" and variations on that theme. Why?"

"Er..." Hiccup's eyes darted around the room in search of an escape route. "Well, why do you say "I could have done it, Father" when you're asleep?"

Loki didn't let his surprise show on his face, but it was a struggle. He said that?

"We are not discussing that," he said.

Hiccup shook his head. "Uh-uh. If you want me to tell you about my nightmares, you have to tell me about yours."

That insolent, presumptuous, arrogant... How dare he demand anything of the God of Mischief? A flash of irritation - tinged, oddly enough, with a hint of almost fond amusement - struck Loki.

"Very well," he said, deciding to humour the boy. "You tell me of your nightmares, then I will tell you of mine."

Hiccup shook his head again, even more emphatically than before. "No. You'd find some way to get out of it. You go first."

Loki was offended. He must be badly out of practice at lying, if the brat could see through him so easily. He'd wriggled out of similar situations scores of times when he and Thor were children, and Thor never noticed anything. ...Of course, that said more about his not-brother's intelligence and observation skills than any great ability for subterfuge on Loki's part.

And now he had to - shudder - talk about his nightmares with a human. It was the sort of sentimental, tooth-rotting, nausea-inducing rubbish Thor would come up with.

It never even occurred to him that he could turn back into a dragon and stay in that form until Hiccup abandoned this latest foolish notion.

"As I told you, the stories your people tell of mine are woefully inaccurate..." he began.

 

* * *

 

 

In Asgard, even though the Bifröst was gone, Heimdall still gazed silently out on the Nine Realms, seeing every place and time. And if his gaze landed on a fallen god and a small human trading stories late at night, and if the corners of his mouth twitched briefly into the faintest of smiles, there was no one around to comment.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _Hamlet_ 's "to be or not to be" soliloquy:  
>  _...to die, to sleep_  
>  _No more; and by a sleep, to say we end_  
>  _The Heart-ache..._


End file.
